“I am fighting for a job,” the veteran right-handed pitcher said Sunday afternoon. “I just don’t have to be ready, I have to pitch good. I have to show people here.”

The 36-year-old Garcia was speaking after his inauspicious spring training debut for the Padres.

Garcia was scheduled to go two innings. He went one.

And in that one inning he allowed five runs (four earned) on five hits and a hit batter. He did strike out one Mariner while throwing 34 pitches (23 strikes) against his former team.

Seattle opened the game by going single, single, homer, double, double. The three-run homer was hit by Garcia nemesis Raul Ibanez, who has a .559 career average against Garcia in 34 at-bats that count.

“I have asked him, ‘why do you hit me like that?” Garcia said of Ibanez, whose three-run blast into a brisk cross-wind Sunday landed high up the grass bank in left at Peroia Stadium.

“That’s definitely not how I want to start the spring,” said Garcia. “I left a couple fastballs up. The first hitters were swinging early. My slider was pretty good after the hits. They didn’t let me pitch my game.”

“Freddy showed a couple of good breaking pitches,” said Black. “But his pitches didn’t get to the spots he wanted. They were aggressive early in the count against him.”

Garcia signed with the Padres as a minor league free agent just two weeks before the opening of spring training. The contract included an invitation to spring training, but no guarantee of making the Opening Day roster.

Though Garcia said he wasn’t overly concerned by Sunday’s outing, he knows the clock is ticking. Even in an extended, 37-game exhibition schedule, Garcia’s future as a Padre might be decided by four or five outings.

“I’ve only been in this situation once before,” said Garcia of making a team out of spring training. “I had to do it in 2011 with the Yankees.”

Garcia responded that season with a 12-8 record with a 3.62 earned run average in 26 games (25 starts). But last year, Garcia was 7-6 with the Yankees with a 5.20 ERA in 30 appearances and only 17 starts. He was actually better out of the bullpen (2-0 with a 2.42 ERA over 22 1/3 innings) than in the rotation (5-6, 5.93 ERA), although he was upset by the fact that he wasn’t starting.

The Yankees released Garcia after the season.

Garcia has credentials. He has a 152-101 major league record with a 4.15 ERA. In his first four seasons, with Seattle, he won 72 games and was an American League All-Star in 2001-2002. He finished second in the A.L. Rookie of the Year voting in 1999.